Exercise improves cardiovascular risk, cognition, anxiety, mood and self-confidence in people with diabetes mellitus (DM). Quite recently, however, metabolic research has got interested in small changes in energy expenditure over sedentary levels like those due to leisure time physical activity (LTPA). Objective. The aim of our study was to verify whether elderly people with DM might improve their quality of life in terms of mood and physical performance as a result of a specific LTPAcentered counselling strategy. Materials and methods. We analyzed 46 sedentary people with DM aged 60 to 80 years divided into 3 groups: "C" (n = 15) just advised to give up their sedentary lifestyle, "CI" (n = 15), like the latter but for monthly telephone interviews and "CS" (n = 16) who got also structured counselling with reference to the specific goal to increase their energy expenditure slightly still keeping within the sedentary limit of 10 MET [metabolic equivalent of task]/week according to the Minnesota LTPA questionnaire. At 0 and 4 months the following parameters were recorded: fasting plasma glucose (FPG), glycated hemoglobin (HbA 1c), total and HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides (TG), geriatric depression scale (GDS) score, handgrip (HG) and physical performance test (PPT). Results. CS subjects improved their LTPA, HbA 1c, TG and GDSlevels while keeping stable in terms of HG and PPT (0.001 < p < 0.05); CI people got lower HbA 1c, HG and PPT, while controls got lower FPG, HG and PPT. Conclusions. CS subjects performed much better than the others at the end of the 4 month period of our study as for both metabolic and functional parameters. This stresses the need for structured education to motivate elderly people with DM to get just a little bit more active and achieve better quality of life goals. This also underlines the role psychologists may play within the diabetes team for the sake of our elderly population.